Fundamentals of Customer Service

Fundamentals of Customer Service

It’s surprising how many businesses don’t focus much on customer service. They believe that serving a customer and finalising the sale is the end of the job, as far as customer service goes. However, there’s a lot more to it than most people realise. Any business with lots of happy, satisfied customers will understand all about the positive benefits of word of mouth advertising.

Listen

Always take the time to listen to what the customer is saying. This will help to identify any problems and make it easier to provide speedy resolutions. Further, it will also help to clarify what products may be best suited to what that person is seeking, therefore making customer service more efficient.

Positive Interaction

Customers truly do like to know there’s a real person behind the corporate entity. Be sure to answer the phones in a friendly manner, and answer queries received by email. Further, if you have a social media account, acknowledge comments or opinions people leave.

Reputation Management

Even the way you deal with unhappy customers or complaints forms part of your customer service policy. People are far more likely to complain to other people if they aren’t satisfied, especially with social media so prominent these days, which can affect how others view your business. Therefore, working to manage those complaints or negative comments quickly and in a positive and helpful manner can go a long way towards turning that negative person into a happy customer.

Smile!

So many people complain about being served by staff who look like they’re having a permanent bad day. Explain to your staff the importance of greeting each customer with a friendly smile. Ensuring that friendly staff members are serving customers is an easy way of keeping customers happy. After all, a smile really can be infectious.

Gratitude

Think about it – without your customers, your business would go nowhere. Be grateful your customers chose to spend their money with you. Thank them for their business.

Sincerity

Most people can pick up a false smile or an insincere apology. Remember the money that customers spend with you pays the salaries in your business – and remind your staff of this too. In short, be sincere when saying thank you or saying sorry.

One of the most overlooked aspects of customer service in any business is training staff about the fundamentals behind it. Thus, the people you allocate to customer service roles need development and training with strategies that focus on these fundamentals. Additionally, you may even want to consider rewards, perks or incentives that keep their morale levels high and help to drive them towards taking more initiatives to provide higher levels of customer satisfaction.

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About

Bagshaw Agri Consulting was formed in 2004 by Michael Bagshaw after a long career in agriculture and then accounting. The business since then has provided finance options to business owners and individuals in regional South Australia.